Writing as a Form of Agency and Advocacy: Developing Writing Motivation in the Middle Grades

Introduction

Writing instruction has long taken a back seat to reading instruction (Graham, 2020), and it is not just researchers who have noted this discrepancy. When I (Katherine, first author) was teaching in a charter school serving a low-income community, one of my eighth graders was shocked to find out that there would be no state standardized test for writing that year because he could not fathom why we spent so much time on writing instruction if there was no test. Despite being one of the top students in his class who excelled at writing, he did not see a purpose or value in the skill outside of state assessments.

This student’s reaction highlights a larger problem in the teaching of writing, especially at the middle grades. Writing instruction at the elementary level typically focuses on conventions of the craft, and students are often allowed to write on topics of their choice (Graham et al., 2012). Elementary classrooms are often set up to celebrate writing achievements, with students “publishing” their work and sharing it with their classmates (Tompkins, 2019). However, when they reach middle school the focus shifts to disciplinary and genre-specific writing, and much of that free choice diminishes (Graham et al., 2016). While students need to continue to develop their writing skills, without the choice and explicit purpose for writing, our students are wondering “why did we waste so much time” on writing.

Beyond being a key component of academic success, writing serves many important uses in daily life (Tompkins, 2019). Writing is a way to communicate with others from text messages to social media posts to emails (Yancey, 2004). Writing is a form of reflection and therapy through journaling or poetry writing. Writing is a management tool used to jot down to-do lists, grocery lists, or notes about upcoming life events. Writing is a form of advocacy and a way that individuals receive support services, stand up for their rights, or persuade others to join or value their cause. In short, writing is a facet of every moment of our lives and consistently part of what we, as humans, value.

For the purpose of this chapter, we focus on answering the question, “why should I learn to write?”, as a mode of advocacy and agency. We argue that quality writing instruction that supports students’ motivation and self-efficacy as writers is essential for those students to become future advocates and change-makers in their communities. Our work is grounded in the Sociocognitive Construct Model of Writing Expertise (Corrigan & Slomp, 2021), which describes the relationships between different domains of writing knowledge. Above the frequently-taught domains that include skills such as the writing process and genre conventions are discourse community and rhetorical aim. While Corrigan and Slomp (2021) describe these two domains as functioning “in tension with one another” (p. 154), they are also at the heart of understanding why someone would want to write. Discourse community describes one’s ability to identify the social expectations of writing and apply those expectations for specific aims. Rhetorical aim, by contrast, relates to the author’s needs and purpose. Helping students identify both why they want to write, and how others in their community will perceive that writing, is at the heart of motivating students to engage in writing practice.

This chapter is organized to support this perspective by first exploring the challenges of teaching writing in the middle grades, to better understand why so many students receive substandard writing instruction. In the sections that follow, we explore the relationship between writing achievement and motivation, and build the connection between writing motivation and equity. Finally, we make recommendations for classroom practices that help develop writing motivation in the middle grades and thus support more equitable outcomes for all students.